Weekly Update #12, 17 December 2021
| Dates for Your Diary |
Upcoming events can be found on the website under School Life → Calendar and are outlined here for easy reference. For daily updates and news follow the HeadStart Facebook Page and YouTube channel.
| Date | Time | Event | Who for? | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Dec - 4 Jan | School Holidays | All | ||
| 05 January | 2.30-4.30 pm | Fee Paid ASP Fair | All | Atrium |
| 06 January | 6.00pm | Online ASP Booking closes | All | |
| 07 January | ASPs are Enroled on Parent Portal | All | ||
| 8-9 January | DofE Year 12 Silver Trip | Year 12 | Ao Yon Beach | |
| 10 January | After school | ASPs & Academies Begin | All | |
| 10-21 January | Mock Exams | Year 11 | ||
| 11 January | 8.15-9.15am | New Parents Orientation | New parents | Secondary Hall, 4th floor |
| Announcements |
Vaccine Passports for Students
Students who have already gotten a Covid vaccination in Phuket can now obtain a vaccine certificate. Just to clarify that this is the responsibility of parents and certificates are available at Vachira Hospital, Luang Poh Cham building (Mahogany building) from Monday - Friday from 8.30 - 16.00. Please bring your child’s passport or Thai ID card and the vaccination slip when applying. The hospital will charge 50THB to issue the certificate. Students must be present at the application process. If students cannot attend this event with their parents, parents must fill in the power of attorney letter and have a student signature on it. All enquiries regarding vaccinations should be sent to Kru Nee, School Director, at [email protected]
Phuket Sunshine Village Fundraiser Results
I am very proud to announce that, as a community we have raised a total 0f 185,0110 Baht in support of the Phuket Sunshine Village Foundation. I would like to personally thank everyone for your kind generosity, for making the effort and helping to instil the value of giving and sharing in our children. I know that this amount of money will go a long way in bettering the lives of the over 90 children who are under the care of the Phuket Sunshine Village Foundation. Within the next few days, I will visit PSV to bring the donation and convey our collective well wishes to the children and their care takers. Pictures and videos will be posted on the school Facebook page of this visit so stay tuned! Ms Miki Edouard, Community Links Coordinator
| Top in Thailand for Maths, Information Technology, History and Music! |
Adam Drew
Since joining HeadStart International School in August 2014, I have been genuinely impressed by the hard work and commitment of all those involved in making HeadStart a place where students are inspired to have the ‘love of learning’ described in the school’s motto. The school community here is one of the best I have ever-worked with and the positive energy that this creates enables us to achieve so much together. Since our last inspection where the school was rated as a good with a number of outstanding features highlighted, I strongly believe that HeadStart International School is well on the way to becoming one of the best schools in Thailand, providing the highest standards in teaching and learning. As we prepare for the next phase where we hope to gain a solid ‘Outstanding’ rating, the next few years will be a truly exciting time for all those involved. Having had a successful Teaching career in the UK for a number of years and having worked in various different management positions, my wife Amy and I made the decision to move to Thailand in 2012 where I worked at an International School in Bangkok. The opportunity to make a real impact at HeadStart and to help shape the future successes of the school drew me to move to Phuket. On a personal level, I am a keen sportsman and have an interest in many sports both as a spectator or participant. A highlight for me was having a leadership position for Event Services at the London 2012 Olympic Games. I am also keen golfer and compete in many of the regular competitions held here in Phuket and further afield. My wife Amy is a teacher in the Foundation department having joined HeadStart shortly after I did. Since working at HeadStart we have become parents for the first time. Ted Drew was born in April 2018 and is excited to be joining pre-school in this academic year. I look forward to continuing to working with the inspired staff and students and the committed and supportive parents that make up the HeadStart. Together we will ensure that we continue to build on the existing successes of the school and make each academic year even more successful than the last. Please feel free to email me at any time to discuss your ideas on how we can do this together. I look forward to meeting you again as the year progresses!
Each year Cambridge Assessment awards the students who have achieved the highest marks in their examinations ‘Cambridge Outstanding Learner Awards’. At HeadStart over the past six years we have had a significant number of students achieving these awards in a diverse range of subjects, highlighting the outstanding academic achievements our students attain.
In the past two years, although Covid has hit examination preparation for students, we have still seen students receive more than 50% A*-A grades in both IGCSE and A Levels. Although somewhat delayed, Cambridge have just released the details of the students who in November 2020 achieved the highest marks in their subjects for AS Levels within the whole of Thailand. At HeadStart we have four of these students who have been awarded the High Achievement (Top in Thailand) award for gaining the highest marks. These were achieved in Mathematics, Information Technology, History and Music by students who have spent an average of seven years studying at HeadStart.
We congratulate them all on this fantastic achievement and wish them well as they now embark on a wide variety of university courses throughout the world. Well Done!
| Top University Applications |
This year sees HeadStart’s largest cohort of Year 13s applying for universities around the world. 41 students are in the throes of applications, interviews and the arduous task of putting the final touches on their personal statements. Many in the community have lovingly nicknamed this class ‘The HeadStart Babies’ as a majority of them have been enrolled at HeadStart since Preschool!
Reece Edouard, enrolled since the age of 2, is applying to study finance at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Teethabhumi Tripatarasit (Poom), enrolled since Year 2, is applying to study Electrical Engineering at Imperial College London. Both universities are ranked ‘top 5 Universities in the UK’. Sara (enroled since Year 6) has applied to study at the highly competitive Columbia University in the City of New York, also one of the world’s leading universities.
These students are high achievers and have shown good work ethic so are well placed to apply to places of this calibre.
We are proud of them for working hard to go through the application process amidst their AS exams. We, and they, know that only a fraction of applications make it to the interview stage, however, they have displayed resilience and ambition which is to be admired. The students and the school have worked hard to prepare for these very competitive places and we now wish them the absolute best. -Ms Indu Bedi, Head of Sixth Form
| HeadStart Alumni Stories |
Vincent Edouard
Vincent Edouard Studying in England
“Hello everyone! My name is Vincent Edouard and I am a former student at Headstart International School. In fact, I am one of the original pupils, along with my 4 brothers, to have been enrolled since HeadStart’s humble beginnings.
After completing my Secondary education, I was offered a place at the University of Portsmouth to study Business Management. I decided to defer and will start the course next year. I can’t wait for that journey, but for now, I’d love to share what I’ve experienced so far with my move into adult life!
Last summer I moved to Cardiff, Wales to study at Cardiff and Vale College for one year before going to Uni. My studies are relatively easy and I like being part of the Football Academy. Cardiff is a beautiful little city and even though it is THE rainiest city in the UK, it definitely makes up for it with its robust energy, the Rugby scene, good parties as well as its little scenic arcades that can be found throughout the city centre. You can easily call Cardiff home because it’s such a compact little town with everything you need. Every single person I’ve conversed with has the kindest soul. The annoying bit is that almost every conversation with new people ends up with them asking me why I’m English but have an American accent, which brings me back to explaining my whole life story.
Adapting to a life of independence has been a journey and a half. Most of my time is spent in supermarkets scrolling through hundreds of websites of recipes and then eventually ending up making the exact same stir-fry dish. Living and taking care of myself is a big job! I just can’t imagine how my parents coped with raising a family of 5 and starting a business at the same time! I must say that that takes extreme dedication and hard work! (And no, my parents did not ask me to write that part!).
To any current HeadStart students reading this, enjoy the incredibly cheap and delicious sticky rice, chicken and pad krapaows while you can because you’re gonna end up craving every Thai dish you can think of, just like I am doing right now while writing this”.
| Spotlight on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) |
In the final SEL session for this half term in Secondary we ran circle time, a well known method to develop community and empathy amongst groups. The aim of the session was to round off the first part of the Six Seconds Cycle - Know Yourself. This term, having worked on understanding how emotions work, the power of naming feelings and knowing our patterns we ended with identifying our triggers and what happens when we get triggered; does our hot button get pushed sending us into fight or flight mode? Or, does our cold button get pushed sending us into freeze mode? We ended on a positive note, if we know our triggers what can we do to stop ourselves reacting? This will be the focus of next term’s SEL curriculum: Choose Yourself which will be about the options we have so we can make choices that work for us.
